Unintended Pregnancy Raises Risk Of Future Ones

Women and girls who’ve had an unplanned pregnancy in the past are at risk of future

Researchers found that of 542 women and teenage girls enrolled in a study to encourage contraceptive use, those with a history of unplanned pregnancy were twice as likely as other women to have another unplanned pregnancy over the next two years.

Age and education emerged as the strongest risk factors for an unplanned pregnancy; teenagers were three times more likely than women older than 24 to have an unintended pregnancy, and women with less than a high school education had a similarly elevated risk.

But even with those and other factors considered, a history of unplanned pregnancy remained linked to a heightened risk of future ones, the researchers report in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

About half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned, a figure that represents a “serious public health concern,” write the researchers, led by Lindsay M. Kuroki of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

For example, they note, compared with other pregnant women, those with unintended pregnancies are less likely to get early prenatal care and more likely to smoke, drink or use drugs. As a result, their babies are at greater risk of problems like low birthweight and prematurity.

Read more at Yahoo News